Page 32 of Head Over Wheels

Assuming that wearing a single earring might bother me on the road, I slipped it out and placed it warily in my toiletry bag.

I was nearly too late for the early pre-race breakfast and, when I rushed into the dining room, it was to find Seb there,a bunch of women fawning over him. Stopping to stare in bewilderment, I realised he wasn’t signing autographs for simpering fans, but drawing little spiders on the wrists of my teammates. At least he blushed fiercely when he saw me.

‘Lori! Come and get your redback from Sebi!’ Leesa called out.

Sebi?‘Um, no thanks. I’ve seen enough redbacks.’ I stomped to the coffee machine and tried to ignore them. Jealousy before a race might just be worse for my state of mind than losing an earring.

He approached me with an apologetic wince after the other women had left to get ready for our 9:30 start, but I shook my head, silently putting him off.

‘See you on the podium,’ he said, backing off with a nod and giving me a casual salute.

As he left the dining room without looking back, I stupidly wondered whether he meant I’d be on the podium or he would.

Viewed from the helicopter thumping overhead, the peloton would have looked like a mythical snake, emerging from the dust to weave its way across the clay hills, contorting itself through curves – a giant organism of many parts, not all of them organic. Racing inside the bunch felt more like being in a spaceship, hurtling ahead with perpetual motion, breathing recycled air, listening to the clicks and whirs of the machinery and hoping no one would make a false move and upset the delicate balance.

My front wheel was almost touching Doortje’s rear one. My longtime nemesis Laura Colombini was pumping the pedals next to me, her jersey in the colours of the Italian flag reminding me that she was a national champion this year and I was not. I was probably imagining it, but she seemed to glance at me more often than necessary.

She was psyching me out, but knowing that didn’t stop me falling into the trap. I started to wonder if I had something on my face, when I should have been thinking about my position, planning a possible attack.

‘Approaching the climb in 500 m. Five in the breakaway, but they’re losing steam already. Wait for your moment and go, Lori – even solo if you have to,’ I heard through the team radio. Alf Londis, the women’s directeur sportif, was watching the coverage from the team car. We’d learned through bitter experience that Dad needed to stay off the radio when I was racing. I couldn’t manage his emotions as well as my own.

Laura glanced at me again and this time I responded with a punchy look of my own. ‘What?’ As soon as the word was out of my mouth, I realised I shouldn’t have said anything.

‘200 m,’ Alf updated me.

‘You didn’t see him, did you?’ she said quietly, sounding alarm bells in my skull.

Keep your mouth shut, Loredana Molly Gallagher. My self-discipline was obviously shot. ‘Who?’

‘100 m!’

I suspected what she was talking about a second before she confirmed it, but not early enough to stop my stomachfrom plummeting to my toes. ‘Gaetano,’ she said. ‘He said you look different these days. Between you and me, it was probably just his ego talking. You know what I mean.’

She lifted a hand long enough to make a wilting gesture with one finger that made me want to laugh, while my insides twisted tight.

‘Lori! Go! What are you waiting for? Go!’

Ahhh, shit, score one: Laura Colombini. She shot ahead of me, stealing the gap that Doortje and Bonnie had worked so hard to set up for me. Shouting an expletive that was sure to have been caught on the motorcycle-mounted camera beside us, I took off after Laura, cursing myself for letting my team down – letting everyone down.

‘There’s been a crash in the breakaway. Go for it, Lori! Now’s your chance!’

Thinking for a moment that perhaps my luck had changed, I pushed hard up the gravel hill, tyres protesting as loudly as my lungs. The landscape disappeared. The only things I could feel were gravity, breath and the bunch-and-release of the muscles in my legs. My vision narrowed to Laura up ahead and two other cyclists who were blurry adversaries.

But I caught up. I was right on Laura’s wheel, basking in her slipstream as we pushed it up the rest of the climb and over the other side. I finally registered that my back ached. Everything ached and I couldn’t tell if it was the remaining damage from the crash and surgery or if it was the usual pain, the stuff we all pushed through.

‘Are we sticking together for a while?’ Laura called behind her.

‘If you shut up about Gaetano,’ I shot back, which made her laugh. I caught myself wondering if we could be friends, if we ever had time or energy. The best cyclists knew how to cooperate and earn the respect of the peloton – and strategically drop them at the right moment. I’d always been better at the latter than the former.

‘You shouldn’t be so sensitive about him. You weren’t married.’

‘I said you should shut up about him.’ It was unfortunately clear who had been the loser in that relationship.

‘Okay, but you take a turn in the lead. There’s a headwind.’

Giving her a wary look as I overtook, I pictured the route in my mind, wondering where she would try to drop me, trying to remember everything I knew about her style and strengths, reminding myself I wasgoodat this stuff. Giving my naked earlobe a quick tug, I wondered whether losing that earring had been a sign of good luck and not bad.

But it was not a good moment to take my hand off the drop bars. Was that—? It couldn’t be. I must have been seeing things. In the middle of the—Ohhhh, fuck!

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